How Cultural Rift can tank your business

Here’s a story about the relationship between a small office and its head office. It is inspired by true events and triggered by the insights from an article on ‘cultural rift’.

There was once a successful people development business that had an impressive reputation in its market. It attracted national clients and thereafter a pool of highly skilled facilitators and coaches. Soon, international corporations came knocking. Those were the good days and they lasted over a decade. To spur further growth, the shareholders decided to open an office in another city. It was a different market place, much slower, more loyal to its incumbent suppliers and rather indecisive. An influential pool of high caliber coaches and facilitators chose to live there too, and this new office became their home. Penetration into the new market was initially slow, but with the credibility of the brand and people associated to it, growth became rampant. The economy was being battered by head winds, but the new office endured. It should have been a happier time, but it wasn’t because a rift began to emerge between the two offices. Animosity and friction escalated. The primary source of conflict was a perceived mismatch of values. The home base valued business performance, profitability and sustainable processes, while the newer office valued innovation, deeper relationships and the community of people that served the brand. These didn’t have to be mutually exclusive, but they became barriers to harmony and synergy, and after five solid years, it fractured the business. The exodus of key people followed. It became nasty and personal. An unfortunate end.

It turns out that this sequence of events is quite common. In fact, it should be something all organisations seek to understand and navigate. In effect, each organisation has a dominant culture that holds within it numerous subcultures. These subcultures are created by variances in leadership styles, functions and geography. They are normal and inevitable. They can offer many advantages to an organisation if they are considered as a valuable component of the whole. However, if these variances are seen as counter culture or as a threat, then a destructive, downward spiral follows. The first signs of a cultural rift include a shift in the sentiment among employees of the sub culture who begin to feel unwelcome and without a sense of belonging. A demanding and domineering primary culture will attempt to force control and hierarchy. Resistance from the subculture follows.

If however these variances are embraced as potential contributors to a new organisational future, or seen as a more diverse set of identities, then numerous benefits are proven to be the result. Research bears this out.

If only the Head Office had embraced the diversity, innovation and community of its offshoot, and the newer office in turn had appreciated the rigour, structure and safety of a guiding and solid hand, then these supposed irreconcilable differences could have been drivers of exciting opportunities. Too often, due to ignorance, these cultural variances are viewed as rifts, rather than exciting sources of creativity and emerging future relevance.